page_title: Jackson Heights, Queens
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Jackson Heights, Queens / Culture
caption_attribution_description: nyc 063
context_page_description: Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. Jackson Heights is neighbored by North Corona to the east, Elmhurst to the south, Woodside to the west, northern Astoria to the northwest, and East Elmhurst to the northeast. Jackson Heights has an ethnically diverse community, with half the population having being foreign-born since the 2000s. According to the 2010 United States Census, the neighborhood has a population of 108,152.
  The site of Jackson Heights was a vast marsh named Trains Meadow until 1909 when Edward A. MacDougall's Queensboro Corporation bought 325 acres of undeveloped land and farms. The Queensboro Corporation named the land Jackson Heights after John C. Jackson, a descendant of one of the original Queens families and a respected Queens entrepreneur. Further development arose through the development of transit, and "garden apartments" and "garden homes" soon became prevalent in Jackson Heights. During the 1960s, Jackson Heights' white middle-class families began moving to the suburbs, and non-white residents began moving in.
  Jackson Heights retains much of its residential character in the modern day.
context_section_description: Jackson Heights is among the most diverse neighborhoods in New York City and the nation. Half of the population was foreign born by the 2000s. Jackson Heights is home to large numbers of South Americans (particularly Colombian, Ecuadorian and Argentinian), Indians, Pakistanis, Tibetans, Nepalese, and Bangladeshis. (Because of its large and vibrant Tibetan community, it has been called "the second (if unofficial) capital of the exile Tibetan world, after Dharamsala, India.") Most businesses are Asian- and Latino-owned, and there are restaurants, bakeries, specialty shops, legal offices, bars, and beauty salons. There is a Little India on 74th Street and a Little Pakistan and Little Bangladesh on 73rd Street. There is also a large concentration of South Americans east of 77th Street, especially a Little Colombia along 37th Avenue.
  Jackson Heights was heavily Colombian during the 1980s, but other immigrant groups have settled in the area, notably Mexicans. Many of the displaced Colombians have moved to adjacent areas such as Elmhurst, East Elmhurst, Corona, College Point and Flushing. Queens County still has the largest concentration of Colombians in the United States of any county (roughly 135,000).
  The 2015 documentary In Jackson Heights portrays Jackson Heights as a microcosm of the American melting pot.
  The word game Scrabble was co-invented by former architect Alfred Mosher Butts, who lived in Jackson Heights.  There is a street sign at 35th Avenue and 81st Street that is stylized using letters, with their values in Scrabble as a subscript; it was originally erected in 1995, but after the sign disappeared in 2008, a replacement was put up in 2011.
caption: Scrabble street sign
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